What the End Looks Like
by greysantomyyyyyxxxxxx
Summary: How do you know what the end looks like when you refuse to see it coming? AddisonDerek


_**What the End Looks Like**_

**_Author's note: Sorry for the lack of one-shots I promised you guys. I've been really caught up in the two RPGs that I write for. We had this other scene the other day that was so amazing I knew I had to turn it into a one-shot. This was co-written with Celestialfire, who is an amazing writer. Review and enjoy!_**

_**Disclaimer: These characters are not ours.**_

Addison sits on the small makeshift trailer porch looking out into the wood. She can't sleep. She can't seem to calm her mind. She rests her arm across her stomach as she sips a glass of red wine. She hadn't seen Derek all day. Partly because she was avoiding him. Partly because she really didn't want to know what had been wrong with him since last night.

_I'm drinking a fifty-dollar bottle of wine on a trailer porch..._

She hears a cars engine, turns her head to the driveway, and sees Derek's SUV pulling in. His bright headlights blind her and she's relieved when he turns them off and gets out of the car. She remains seated and looks at Derek as he grabs his bag and walks towards her. He looks unfocused and disheveled.

"How's Preston?" Is all Addison can think to ask him. It was neutral and safe to ask about.

Derek sighs with a force that astounds both of them, his shoulders drop in a gesture of defeat almost unheard of in an accomplished neurosurgeon.

"I may have made a mistake, Addie," looking at her face, so concerned and focused on him, he wonders just how many mistakes he's made, "Another one for the list. Preston... he may have lower-body paralysis. I won't know until tomorrow."

He can't meet her eyes, admitting his failure to another surgeon is one thing. Admitting to Addison that he may have ruined Preston's life makes his pride shake loose inside of him and evaporate.

Derek runs his hand through his hair. Addison is giving him this - a chance to run through the facts again. Detached, impersonal: the facts of a surgery.

"He presented with compromised blood flow in the area injured by the bullet. I removed the bullet to promote healthy circulation, so that he could work up his dexterity and control," He pauses and takes a breath that wavers more than he'd like to admit, "but the bullet was also holding an unseen bleeder. His spinal bleed was too fast and too intense to stem without cauterizing. I had to cauterize it, Addie. I had to." He needs Addison to take his side on this. This is where his self-doubt claws at him. He winces and swallows, his lips tightening into a slender line.

"The caut-gun may have damaged the lower body nerves. I... I saved his arm. He can still be a surgeon," he looks up at Addison and takes a healthy swig from the bottle, "I just don't know if he can walk."

He searches Addison's eyes for approval, forgiveness... absolution. He raises the bottle to his lips again.

Addison looks up and meets his eyes. She rests her hand on his leg and reaches for her wine glass at her feet. She takes a sip and breathes in heavily searching for the right words and thinking back to cases she's seen like this before.

Her face relaxes as she realizes that is not about the medicine but Preston's identity.

"Derek you made the right decision. You thought about who Preston is and what is most important to him. Preston Burke is a surgeon and surgery is his life. If he lost his power to save lives his legs would be no use to him because he would lose his edge, his drive. He would essentially lose himself. Derek you did what he would have wanted you to do."

Derek sighs again, "God, I hope so."

He looks at Addison, who has every reason to be angry with him, and yet... her eyes aren't resentful, she's not holding something back or waiting for an opportunity to cut him down. She just loves him. She's just being Addie. His wife.

He sets the bottle down on the step, his eyes never leaving hers, and leans toward her.

Addison leans into his kiss and feels her stomach drop as her lips meet his. She closes her eyes as his tongue slightly parts her lips. After a few moments they both pull away. She looks at him and trying to think of the right words to tell the man she is still very much in love with how she feels.

She settles for three small words. "I've missed you."

If his brain was numb earlier, it is absolutely wiped now. The chalkboard of his mind is blank and uninspired. His existence comes through in feelings, not words.

His words surprise no one more than himself, "I love you, Addison."

He stands up, reeling off the porch as if he can somehow escape what he just said. Unfeel it, unsay it. Instead, he whirls back to face Addie and yells again, still walking backwards away from her,

"I love you. God, Addison, there's nothing I want more than to make everything okay again. I can't live like this. I can't let you live like this. I love you."

His proclamations are cut short by a protruding stone in the lawn. Derek finds himself delivering his last desperate 'love you.' to the starry sky with an ache in his head as he lies in the grass.

Addison can hardly remember the last time he told her that he loves her. Sure they said it to each other in passing, but it was out of habit and nothing else.

Addison gives him a sad smile as she sees him fall back on the grass. He didn't fall hard. Addison finishes her wine, steps up from her seat, and lies next to him on the grass. She interlocks her fingers with his and stares intently at the sky.

"I love you too Derek, you know that right?"

Derek flexes his fingers where they intertwine with Addison's, pulling her hand onto his chest. She can feel each uneven breath under his sweater.

"Oh, Addie. We sure didn't expect to end up like this, did we?"

"Oh Jesus... no." Addison sighs as she moves closer to him in the grass. She thinks back to the good days when they were two young doctors madly in love. When she was the only reflection in his eyes.

"Do you remember when we used to go to that pub on Madison and cut through Central Park on the way home and we would stop and lay in the grass for hours talking... Even though we knew we had to report for rounds in only a few hours... God that seems like another life time..."

His laugh is mirthless and soft, "Flagrantly disregarding professional responsibility and public intoxication laws, yes."

He rolls up onto his side, looking at his wife and remembering the years of being lost in one another, of knowing every thought before it was given voice, of passion so intense that they developed their own pager code for 'scrub room, like, now.'

Now their 'love'-making is like a homage - like trying to recreate what they had, paying respects to the heat and fulfillment that had come before. He wonders if sex leaves her emotionally exhausted now, like it does him. He wonders if in hindsight she wishes she had stayed with Mark.

He wonders if she will somehow give him permission to leave. Admit that this farce is more painful than promising and leave him to his West Coast life.

"If you knew then what you know now, where would you be?" Derek asks.

Addison rolls over to meet his eyes.

"Home with you. In New York..." Addison pauses and pulls at the grass.

"I would have never let us drift apart. I would have tried harder and worked less. Maybe even tried to start a family. I think now, unlike then I know what I want and what's really important in life."

The idea of starting a family gives him pause. Meredith had asked him once if it would have made a difference if he and Addison had had children. If maybe she wouldn't have cheated. If he would not have left.

He tries to imagine them now, living in his tiny metallic twinkie with a baby. There has never been any question with Derek that he wanted to be a father. And time would eventually become a factor. Was Addison hinting?

He takes a moment to think about where he would be if wishes were reality. Would he be happier if he had never come to Seattle? If he had never had a reason to leave Manhattan?

"What do you want, now?" Derek asks softly his eyes meeting hers.

Addison forgets about her hurt feelings, jealousy, and suspicions and searches her heart for the answer to his question. It's too late for half-truths and guarded feelings.

She kisses him softly on the lips.

"You."

Derek inhales deeply. The cold Seattle air that smells so deeply of Addison, with his open mouth only inches from hers. He wraps his free arm around her shoulders to support her as he lowers her back to the ground, and suspends himself just barely above her, leaning in for a kiss with much more purpose, his body almost uncomfortably warm in the night.

"Oh, Addie."

Addison pulls his body on top of hers and kisses him deeply. The kiss feels different. He feels different. They were both broken because of Mark, because of Meredith, because of each other, but before Mark and long before Meredith they had one another.

Derek pulls his head up from the kiss and looks deeply into his eyes. There was a time she could look in his eyes and tell exactly what he was feeling at any given moment. Now he was a mystery to her, but there was something familiar in his eyes-- her reflection.

"Derek can we do this?" Addison whispers.

Breathing heavily after kissing Addison used to be par for the course. Now his breath comes in tight gasps because there is something twisting and tight in his chest. He can't breathe past it. Can't lie through it for very long, he knows.

One way or another, he has to be honest with Addison. She deserves that. He's beginning to think that she deserves more than that. Maybe more than him.

"Addison, you're a surgeon. You can do anything you set your mind to," he rocks back a little onto his knees, giving them space to breathe, to think.

"But we need to talk. You need to decide if I'm what you want to set your sights on, because we both know that you always get what you want."

Addison sits up from the grass leaning back on her hands and faces Derek.

"Then lets talk now."

Part of her already knows what he's going to tell her. She begins to brace herself for the impact.

Derek looks down, defeated before he gets the first word out of his mouth.

He can't do this outside; the poetic irony of 'leaving her in the cold' is too much for him.

"Let's go inside, Addie. There's more stuff to throw inside the twinkie."

Addison had taken to calling the trailer 'Derek's not-coping-with-life twinkie house', and while he resented the implication, the name made Derek laugh.

He stood and offered her his hand, unsure how to express that if he didn't love her he would walk away without having this conversation. As she stands he leans in and kisses her one more time, softly on the lips.

"We both made mistakes, Addie. But for my part, I'm so sorry that we ended up here."

Addison feels herself break inside.

_He's about to leave me..._

"I'm sorry too..."

Addison looks up at him her eyes are filled with pain.

"You slept with her last night at prom."

Addison says the words slowly and coolly.

He knows her too well. With any other woman he could blithely assume that this disaffected delivery meant that what she was saying had no emotional weight with her.

With Addison, he knew she was running damage control on a broken heart.

"I can't stop myself from loving her, Addison. I want to be the man you married, the husband you deserve. I want to go back to being the partner I loved to be for you, for eleven years. But I love her. I love her, too."

Addison feels the tears begin to form in her eyes.

_No you can't cry. Not in front of him._

"But you don't love me enough, is that it?" She doesn't wait for him to answer. "God damnit couldn't you have told me this say seven months ago before I moved across the country and gave up everything for you including my dignity. I gave it all up for you because I love you. I love you so much and wish I didn't. I wish I could have been content with Mark but when you left me I felt numb and empty like I destroyed the only thing that mattered to me in the word. Derek I love you."

Addison loses her composure and is sobbing by the time she finishes speaking. She has nothing left to hold back she had bared her heart and soul to Derek and there is nothing else she can do.

"Addison," he reaches toward her, but lets his hand linger in the air, unsure if his is the arm she wants to comfort her, "we were working at it. I _wanted_ to give this up, to come back to what we had. It wasn't a secret that Meredith was going to be a hurdle in all of this, but I tried, Addie. I've been trying, so hard."

His breathing is spasmodic, and when next he speaks, it is with warm rivulets of tears running down his upturned face, reaching for Addison, but looking at the trees above and behind her. Addison begins to walk toward the trailer.

Derek follows her and continues to speak. "Because I love you, and I wish that was the end of the list. I wish I were content _here_, or that I could tell you why not. All I know is that something is missing, Addison. And that something... I don't know if I can live without it."

"And I'm not sure if I can live without you..."

The white knight is slain by his own indiscretion. There's nothing honorable left in this for him to do, but,

"What do you need from me, to help you figure out what you want to do? I can find somewhere else to stay for a while - not with Meredith - or we can... talk, some more," which is the last thing he wants to do, keep talking about this.

I can't leave you in the cold, Addie. I love you too much to leave you twice. It's your turn to choose."

Addison wipes her face with the back of her sleeve. She has to keep whatever dignity she has managed to retain. She doesn't say anything and leaves him standing in the middle of the trailer as she goes pulls her traveling bag her under the bed. She opens her drawers and throws what she needs into the bag. She zips it up and carries it back to the kitchen area where Derek is still standing.

She puts on her heels and her coat and picks up her handbag. She opens the squeaky screen door. She gives Derek one last longing look and leaves the trailer.

Her legs feel week and her bag is heavy.

_I just have to make it to the car. Just make it to the car Addison._

Derek leans out the door, maybe more floored by her silence than by her decision to leave. He hadn't expected her to leave without giving a final proclamation.

_Is she leaving to think? Is she leaving for good?_

"Addison! Addie!"

Addison drops her bags on the lawn and turns to face him.

"What more do you want from me? I have nothing left."

Derek has this problem with not really thinking his conversations through with the angry women in his life.

"Is this it, Addison? Is this how the end looks?"

Addison swallows and struggles to maintain her resolve.

"I'll see you at the hospital Dr. Shepherd."

Addison focuses on each step as she finally makes it to her car and throws her bags in the passenger seat. She places her hands on the wheel and starts the car.

She looks down at her wedding rings. They feel like fire on her hand. She pulls them off and rolls down her window. She throws them forcefully at the trailer. Part of her hoping that he'll pick them up and run to her car and tell her that he didn't want her to go and that she was still the love of his life.

Derek doesn't move. Addison closes the window and backs out of the driveway.

Her headlights retreat down the sloped makeshift driveway and swing out and away. Away from him, from the trailer she hated and bore with to try to win him back.

Derek had expected to feel relieved afterwards. To meet up with Addison and tell her a simple goodbye. Hell, he had made plans to meet up with Meredith right afterwards.

Derek steps further out onto the porch and sits on the step. At the very tip of a shadow cast by his silhouette against the soft lights from inside the twinkie, his great grandmother's ring sparkles in the grass.

Derek watches the ring as dew gathers and then burns away, as the sun rises and he has no choice but to stand and work the muscles stiffened by hours of contemplation. He walks across the lawn, grabs the two rings, and gets in his car.

As his hand comes to rest on the key, still in the ignition from the night before, he sees his own golden band on the other hand. Remembers the last time he took it off. Remembers putting it back on.

He slams his hand against the steering wheel, leans back against the headrest, and just... cries.

_**--FIN**_


End file.
